The management of cutaneous melanoma continues to pose a significant challenge. Clinical prognostic factors have not been shown to predict disease recurrence and overall survival in patients with metastatic disease. Adjuvant therapy for melanoma can have major side effects, and can be associated with significant morbidity. In addition, it has been difficult to identify which patients will respond to the few treatment options available, as well to predict disease recurrence and progression.
Over the last decade, advances in melanoma translational research have attempted to identify key components in molecular and genetic alterations that affect the progression of this disease (1). High-throughput genomic approaches have been focused on identifying gene aberrations in the RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK-MAP kinase signaling pathway, since they have been shown to regulate cellular differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis (2-4).